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April 6, 2016

Spontaneous Saturday

The horses are currently locked in the, rather spacious, dry-lot. Unfortunately, because we are farming newbies didn't know better, last summer we left them on the pasture 24/7 resulting in them over-grazing it. Lesson learned. Now that the ground has thawed, they are off of it until the grass is 6" tall. Then they will be given limited grazing; only munching it down to 3".

I am not exactly cool with the no turnout situation. As such, our current farm project is the building of a new paddock. There is a large area of our property along the road that we don't use for anything and has never been fenced. Given the location it is pointless to mow it, so we decided to fence it off. This paddock will be handy for so many reasons. Turnout when the pasture is off limits, longing, ground work, and new horse quarantine, etc.

New Paddock Location

In the last year and a half, I have learned that farm projects happen according to the weather, not my schedule. This does not exactly work well for my overly organized self, but I am learning to adapt. Last Saturday we were outside enjoying the delicious sunny 60 degree weather, while I loaded the horses to haul to the vet for spring shots and coggins. I randomly ask Hubs when he thinks the timing would be good to dig post holes for the paddock. Things were moist but not muddy, and the permafrost finally melted. He looked at the ground and said "now".

By the time the horses and I got home from the vet, there was a bright yellow one-man auger sitting in the driveway, and an ecstatic JR begging to run the thing. However, we had friends arriving for a barbecue that afternoon and couldn't start the project until Sunday.

The one man auger. It worked better with two people though.

JR insisting on standing in the hole

Sunday morning came bright and early, and we spent the whole day measuring and digging post holes. Thankfully EB came out to ride that afternoon and then generously offered to play with JR until dinner time, allowing us to finish all the holes before having to return the auger. We were however 20 posts short, so the project is ongoing. Hubs is picking up the rest of the posts on Thursday, and then we will get back to work on setting the posts in their holes and installing the equifence wire. I cannot wait to get it done and let the horses have some turnout again!

Post holes all dug, some posts set, some needing to be set, and more needing to be purchased.

Right there with you the weather being in charge - it is so hard when all these projects need done...now! We live in IN and are having a very wet spring, so I feel your pain. We bought our property in October so am watching the pasture carefully for overgrazing. Dry lot is on the list of projects!

Disclaimer

This blog and the training methods presented are not intended to be instructions, and I accept no responsibility for any injuries to horse or person that might try to replicate my training techniques. This blog is simply a forum for me to share accounts of what I personally did with my specific horses to train them. Do not assume that these methods would necessarily work with another horse or for any other person, or that another horse would react in the same way as described in this blog.

I simply hope that you find this blog entertaining and inspirational, and thanks for visiting!